Jeffrey R. MacDonald

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American former medical doctor and United States Army captain who was convicted in August 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970 while serving as an Army Special Forces physician.

MacDonald has always proclaimed his innocence of the murders, which he claims were committed by four intruders—three male and one female—who had entered the unlocked rear door of his apartment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and attacked him, his wife, and his children with instruments such as knives, clubs and ice picks.

Prosecutors and appellate courts have pointed to strong physical evidence attesting to his guilt.

He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.

The MacDonald murder case remains one of the most litigated murder cases in American criminal history.

Jeffrey MacDonald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, the second of three children born to Robert and Dorothy (née Perry) MacDonald.

He was raised in a poor household on Long Island, with a disciplinarian father who, although nonviolent towards his wife and children, demanded obedience and achievement from his family.

MacDonald attended Patchogue-Medford High School, where he became president of the student council.

He was voted both "most popular" and "most likely to succeed" by his fellow students, and was king of the senior prom.

Towards the end of his eighth grade year, MacDonald became acquainted with Colette Kathryn Stevenson (b. May 10, 1943).

He would later recollect he had first observed Colette "walking down the hallway (of Patchogue High School) with her best friend" and that, although he was attracted to both girls, he found Colette more attractive.

Approximately two weeks later, they began talking and formed a friendship, with MacDonald soon "asking her out to the movies".

The two formed a brief romantic relationship in the ninth grade, with MacDonald later recollecting they fell in love while holding hands on a balcony while watching the movie A Summer Place at the Rialto Theater in Patchogue.

He would later reminisce that whenever he or Colette heard the song "Theme from A Summer Place" across the airwaves, "either of us would turn up the radio".

The following summer, while visiting a friend on Fire Island, Colette announced to MacDonald their relationship was over.

MacDonald later formed a relationship with a girl named Penny Wells.

MacDonald's high school grades were sufficient for him to earn a three-year scholarship at Princeton University, where he enrolled as a premedical student in 1962.

By the second year of his studies, MacDonald and Wells had separated.

He soon resumed his romantic relationship with Colette, then a freshman at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs.

He would later recollect Colette had grown into a shy young woman with a "slight fear of the world in general" who would rely on his own self-confidence.

MacDonald found her timidity touching, and gradually viewed himself as her protector in addition to her boyfriend.

The two regularly exchanged letters, and he would frequently hitchhike to Skidmore College to be in her company at weekends.

Although MacDonald was dating other women at the time, he resolved to marry Colette upon learning she was pregnant with his child in August 1963.

She in turn left college to raise their child.

With the consent of Colette's family, the two married on September 14 in New York City.

One hundred people attended the service, with the reception held at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

The couple then honeymooned at Cape Cod.

Their first daughter, Kimberley Kathryn, was born on April 18, 1964.

After his undergraduate work at Princeton, MacDonald briefly worked as a construction supervisor before he moved with his wife and child to Chicago in the summer of 1965, where he had been accepted at Northwestern University Medical School.

The couple moved into a small one-bedroom apartment, with Colette committed to maintaining the household and raising their daughter as MacDonald focused on his studies, while also working a series of part-time jobs to assist with family finances.

The following year, the family relocated to a middle-class neighborhood.

Their second child, Kristen Jean, was born on May 8, 1967.

Shortly after MacDonald graduated from medical school in 1968, he and his family relocated to Bergenfield, New Jersey as he completed a one-year internship at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, specializing in thoracic surgery.

MacDonald later described his internship year as "a horrendous year" for both himself and Colette, adding he frequently worked 36 hours with only 12 hours at home.

Consequently, when at home, he was frequently exhausted and had limited interaction with his wife and daughters.

At the completion of his internship, MacDonald and Colette vacationed in Aruba before MacDonald joined the Army.

MacDonald was commissioned in the United States Army on June 28, 1969, and sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas to undergo a six-week physician's basic training course.

While at Fort Sam Houston, he volunteered to be assigned to the Army's Special Forces ("Green Berets") to become a Special Forces physician.

He was then assigned to Fort Moore, Georgia (then known as Fort Benning), where he completed their paratrooper training course.

Although MacDonald had joined the Army knowing he might be deployed to serve in the Vietnam War, he later learned that, as a Green Beret doctor, he was unlikely to serve overseas.